Recent reviews by lae

This game is the true definition of a modern masterpiece. When a massive company such as Active Visionaries puts their entire budget into one franchise, you just know it will turn out great. This is especially true when you have such legendary producers behind the game. Gabe Newell and Notch teamed up for the first time in the 21st century to bring out a title like no other. The embodiment of this partnership IS Bad Rats.

Everything about the game is perfect, from the Grammy award-winning soundtrack to the carefully designed visuals. Despite being critisized for "low-res textures" and "terrible animation quality" by Gamespot, IGN (which is clearly a much more reputable and completely legitimate company which always gives quality non-biased reviews) utterly destroyed Gamespot's arguments by explaining how the textures allowed the game to be accessed by people of all computer types. This is truly a remarkable amount of insight which cannot be overstated.

Furthermore, the game comes in three different resolutions, which was obviously a deliberate choice to make sure the menus were simple and easy to navigate. Overshadowing the graphics, however, is the fluid and delicate gameplay which truly make the game a joy to play through. According to head designer Shigeru Miyamoto, the development team wanted to add an element of replayability and self-discovery in the game. To achieve this, they made sure nothing does anything remotely near what you tell it to do. Every tutorial is a lie; to beat the level you must think outside the box by randomly guessing what the ball will do. Innovative design like this is a rarity in a world full of clones of great games like The Incredible Machine. Thankfully this game manages to deliver.

All in all, if you want to win a free iPad and have swag, then buy this game.

Shrek

While I believe that Klei is a wonderful, hard-working company that genuinely cares for it's customers, Don't Starve is not all that I had hoped it would be, though it is still, in my opinion; a great game.

Having recently finished playing through another Klei game; namely, Mark of the Ninja, I came into Don't Starve with high expectations; I throughly enjoyed MotN, and hoped to enjoy this title just as much. Understandably, Don't Starve is a completely different game in comparison to anything else that Klei has done; to me this is an experiment, and a succesful one at that.

There is little plot for the game; at least to the extent which I have gotten to; Day 9. Obviously, that isn't very far into the game; but the story up to this point has been essentially one sentence: You get dropped off onto a random island my a mysterious man who vanishes once you awaken. For a survival game, it is acceptable, but a little more backstory would be nice.

The artstyle and graphics of Don't Starve are in general, up to par with Klei's other titles. It bears tons of similarities to Shank and MotN, almost exactly the same, assuming you ignore that the game world is 3D. This is probably the strangest part about the game for me; it is the fact that your character, and interactive objects in the world are all 2D, but the world itself is 3D. Thus, it sounds like it would be a 2.5D game, but rarely have I seen one of those games that weren't either action shoot em' ups, or platformers. Not really "innovative" persay, but still a relatively original concept, and the excution is done fairly competently.

Gameplay is interesting but nothing special for this genre. This is probably the most "survive" out of the small sub-genre of survival games that really was started thanks to the popularity of Mojang's Minecraft. To me, this is the middle ground betweed the Metroidvania 2D Terraria, and the fully 3D Minecraft. In game, you have your standard tools and weapons, the research system is pretty stale and uninspired; it also appears to be very farmable from what I have heard, though I haven't reached that stage in the game myself. I think a lot more depth could be put into this aspect of the game; it would be awesome to have a choice between dozens of different playstyles and with it; tools and weapons.

Difficulty-wise, on a standard map with all the presets on default, I died only once, on my first playthrough of the game where I ran out of food and was forced to attack a giant bird who pecked me to death. My subsequent three runthroughs are all still alive, with my longest game being on Day 9. I can imagine that the game will get harder once I have to deal with going insane. I also can see it being difficult if you set resources to minimum.

Other than the game itself, it does come with TF2 Promos for pre-orders; I believe the promos consist of a ham shank all-class melee reskin, as well as the hair of Wilson for the majority of the classes in game. You also get a second copy of the game to give to a friend, or do as you please with. For $12, that is pretty good value, especially if you have a friend that wants to play as well; sadly due to that bonus, the promos are most likely going to be worth next to nothing simply due to the fact that every copy sold means double the promos.

Overall, a good value for the price, I reccomend picking it up.

(Obviously the game is still in Beta at the time of writing, everything in game could be subject to change.)

This is one of those games where you sit down to finish a level before sleeping for the night. You start it up, and begin playing. All of a sudden, you wake up to blinding sunlight, and find yourself 20 more levels in, and also an hour late to work.

Why is it so addicting? It has a brilliant art style, which I would compare to watercolors. The gameplay is addicting and meaningful, despite the fact that you really only have to press 4 keys the entire time. Sound effects and the narrator are high quality and easy to listen to. Cutscenes are done very well, with several refrences and funny moments, however it doesn't have quite as many serious ones. Due to this, the game has a very lighthearted and cartoony feel, which matches the asthetic quite well. My only complaint here (and really, for the whole game) is the way the background scrolls; it makes me a bit nauseous and sometimes I lose my coordination, but the detail in the background itself more than makes up for that.

It has what I believe is 6 reskins for each of the characters, along with 100+ levels. That alone is plenty to keep you coming back for more of hte game, but a global and friends-list only highscore board makes you want to redo levels over and over until you get all the collectibles and gold. On top of that, there is a minigame that activates at the end, but only if you collect everything in the level. This is yet another way to fail getting 100%, as accidentally firing too early or too late can ruin the perfect run you just had in the hardest level in the game and crush your dreams of being on the top of the leaderboard.

In addition, for those who preferred the retro feel of the original, there are certain points in quite a few levels where you can drop into a box that reveals a retro styled map. Charming Mario style jump noises and a traditional 3 hearts system for this mode make it a solid addition in my opinion. Another new system that affects fans of the original may be the checkpoints. I feel that Gaijin handled this perfectly, giving the newbies and casuals (me) some leverage in terms of screwing up. On the other hand, they gave the good players and vets satisfaction by giving them points if they skip the checkpoint. In fact, the checkpoints can even turn into obstacles for players who intend to get perfect runs, since missing the jump over them results in using it whether you want to or not.

To top it all off, the soundtrack that builds in layers brings even more incentive to do as well on the level as you can, since the gold pieces add to the music. I have already experienced playing just so I could hear the end of the track.

To summarize it all: Bit. Trip Presents Runner 2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien is a loveable, addicting platformer that is an improvement in every way to the original. The stellar soundtrack, voice acting, animations, and character adds up to make this a great gaming experience for a casual gamer who has never touched a platformer, and just as much so for a speedrunning veteran who has been doing this for years. Definitely a great buy for $15. I highly recommend it.

The DOTA 2 of casual gaming.

Do it.